Rents $130 a week over the national average

The Liberals’ Zed Seselja is pointing out new research showing just how high rental prices have come in this town of affordable housing plans:

The latest RP Data figures on rents in major cities shows the squeeze for housing continues in the ACT with rents increasing by four per cent in the last quarter to an average of $480 for a house – the second highest amount in the country, Leader of the Opposition, Zed Seselja, said today.

“This is further evidence that under Jon Stanhope and ACT Labor more pressure is being placed on Canberrans to find a place to live,” Zed said. “While most other justifications remained flat in the last quarter, the ACT’s average rents increased by four percent to $130 above the national average.

…

“A strangling of land supply, high taxes and poor planning processes under ACT Labor has lead to high prices for both buying and renting in the ACT. These latest figures confirm yet again that Jon Stanhope and ACT Labor are the only ones that believe Canberra is an affordable housing jurisdiction,” Zed concluded.

Just think of all the amazing things we could all be doing with that money?

The RP Data report actually seems to say that ACT rents went up by 2.1% – about half as much as Zed is claiming (http://blog.rpdata.com/). Now, that is still a lot of money, but how did he get his figures so wrong?

“This is further evidence that under Jon Stanhope and ACT Labor more pressure is being placed on Canberrans to find a place to live,” Zed said.

I like this line better – I can kind of see what he’s getting at, but his phrasing implies that there’s some large pool of Canberrans that have, until now, been resisting the pressure to find somewhere to live. Damn that Stanhope and his anti-nomadic policies!

And slowly building wealth so that one day they can live a more comfortable lifestyle than they otherwise would. Which also means they’ll collect less welfare/pension, probably have private health care, spend more into the economy, and pay more tax.